By George
by Kate Christie
Summary: When Kathryn Janeway arrived to speak at a Starfleet conference, the last person she expected to meet was her former first officer, with whom she had completely lost touch in the year since Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant. (AU in reference to the relaunch novels, which I have not read…) Beta by Alex, Artwork by E (@random ship E)
1. Chapter 1

"By George," J/C, rated T, for 25 Days of Voyager. By Kate Christie.

Summary: When Kathryn Janeway arrived to speak at a Starfleet conference, the last person she expected to meet was her former first officer, with whom she had completely lost touch in the year since Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant. (AU in reference to the relaunch novels, which I have not read…)

# * # * # * #

"Just across the lobby-left at the second fireplace, and the elevators will be on your right."

"Thank you."

Kathryn Janeway shouldered her overnight case and aimed her snow boots in the direction the conference greeter had pointed, across an expanse of parquet floors glowing warm under soaring ceilings dripping with antique crystal chandeliers. With the evening free, she had plenty of time to catch up on reading the queue of reports she had ignored all week in favor of preparing her talk for tomorrow.

"Kathryn?"

Two syllables, crisp and round, stopped her in her tracks. Despite her best efforts to clamp down on it, warmth bubbled up at the sound of that voice-his voice-too long absent from her ears.

One hundred eighty degrees brought her face to face with the sparkling eyes and smiling lips of its owner.

"Chakotay."

Twelve months.

"Are you here for the conference?" He stepped close enough she could smell his cologne, still the same sandalwood and spice that had wafted between their chairs on the bridge, between their bedrooms on New Earth. _Comfort._ Her body and brain had no business reverting to old habits.

"I'm speaking at it." Her voice stayed steady as a smile crept across her lips. Damn, he looked good. Lean and strong, hair a little shaggy for regulation, smile lines softening the sharp angles of his face.

"Of course you are." Chakotay tipped his chin as one eyebrow quirked up.

There was that _sparkle_ again. Kathryn dragged her eyes from his face long enough to scan the room for… anyone he might have brought along.

"Are you-?" Surely she would be here with him for a weekend of Starfleet technical talks at a fancy resort.

"Alone." His eyes drew her gaze with their intensity, and she could not help but search them for some sign. Some tiny flicker of hope. "Have been for the better part of the past year."

Chakotay had taken leave days after their return-gone off planet-and she had intentionally avoided asking. Not the Doctor. Not Harry. Not even B'Elanna. And somehow everyone had respected her silent plea not to know. The hurt had wanted its solitude to brood and fester.

And fester it had.

All her earlier warmth shriveled down to an icy shard that lodged deep in her chest. He had been almost a year without Seven, and he had never reached out. Not a note. Not a call. _Message received._

Swallowing, Kathryn perked up her smile and moved on.

"So, are you attending, or speaking?" Steady. Stone cold, but not a waiver in her voice. Not now.

"Starfleet's Winter Strategy School? What do you think?"

"Sunday keynote lecture?" She should have looked more carefully at the program before she had accepted at the last moment, a favor for Owen Paris to replace a speaker who had fallen ill.

"Ha. No, leading a roundtable on unconventional tactics tomorrow and chairing the last session on Sunday night. Did you already check in?"

"Just now. You?" Her cheeks were beginning to ache from the forced smile.

"Got in an hour ago. I came down to forage for food." The man had always had the oddest eating hours.

"At four in the afternoon? The sun hasn't even set yet." She waved in the direction of the enormous bank of windows overlooking the sapphire blue water of the lake, rimmed in freshly-fallen snow that caked the branches of ancient evergreens.

"I guess some things never change. Here, let me carry that."

Kathryn surrendered her case and turned back along her original path to the elevators, Chakotay falling into step just behind her.

"Where are you based these days?" Another splinter of ice worked its way into the pit of her stomach at the admission that she had no idea where her former best friend and closest confidant even lived.

"I've moved around a lot, actually. Took some time away to see my sister. I came back to Earth about a month ago. I'm not far from Headquarters, a little place in San Mateo."

As they stepped onto the old-fashioned lift and rose toward her floor, her heart dropped to a comfy spot near her shoes. He had been only a few miles away for a month.

They were at her dark-stained wooden door before she had recovered her wits, but thankfully Chakotay was filling the silence.

"So, would you like to join me for dinner at a more reasonable hour, say, eight?"

What she would have liked was a bath and a good sulk to sort through the mess churning inside her head. What she would have liked was a well-timed attack on Earth from an unknown alien species. What she would have liked was for Owen Paris not to have asked her here in the first place.

Kathryn took a breath and looked him straight in the eye.

"I'd love to."

She thumbed the scanner lock and a small light flashed green as the mechanism clicked open. Turning the knob, she stepped inside her room, pivoting back to find her former first officer holding her bag out to her.

"I'll be back at eight."

"See you then."

As she shut the door, Kathryn leaned back against the wall beside it, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. Two days in the same hotel as the man she-.

Damn.

# * # * # * #

"Let me guess, coffee?" Chakotay smirked at her as their server appeared, expectant look on her face. The old-fashioned wax candles had shrunk to half their original height between them as their dinner stretched toward dessert.

Her soak in perhaps the largest bathtub she had ever seen and her accompanying sulk had done their jobs, and Kathryn had met Chakotay at eight with no greater expectation than charting their way back to friendship. From all indications, he wanted the same. By the time the final plates had been cleared, she had heard of his family, his travels, his new position at the Academy starting in the winter term. And he had listened with rapt attention as she told of her mother and Phoebe and her promotion to Admiral.

"Actually, I've taken up tea, at this time of the night, anyway."

"What? We survived the Vidians, the Hirogen, _the Borg_ to make it back to an endless supply of coffee and now you drink _tea_? Who are you and what have you done with my Kathryn Janeway?"

He was smiling, joking with his former captain, but for the first time in two hours her heart jumped to her throat, heat rising across her cheeks and sending the tips of her ears up in flame. It was as though all the oxygen had been sucked from the room.

"Some things just didn't seem the same once we got back home. Didn't quite live up to the memories I had been holding onto all those years." Her eyes trailed out the window across the midnight-black expanse of water, and the perfect circle of the moon was just peeking through the treetops on the opposite bank. She couldn't help herself. "But we did cheat death a few times, didn't we?"

It was so far back she wasn't sure if he would remember, nearly five years, when she had invited him to celebrate one such occasion.

"I've been thinking about that since I saw you in the lobby this afternoon." So he hadn't forgotten after all.

"It's quite the coincidence, the two of us, finally here, together." She couldn't meet his eyes yet, afraid too much would show through the careful facade she had managed to maintain all night.

That night, after he had tried to save her life, then held her, sobbing and helpless, while she died, they had never made it to the holodeck, never even replicated the bottle of champagne, much less boarded a boat as she had proposed.

"I thought you might actually toss Neelix out an airlock when he stopped us in the corridor that night-" the mirth in his voice finally pulled her gaze back to his face, his smile so infectious at the memory that she couldn't help joining in.

"For help with the flood in hydroponics-" her eyes rolled to the point of straining at the crystal-clear image of Neelix's devastated expression.

"Threatening the entire crop of-"

"Leola root."

"Leola root."

They chorused the name of the offending vegetable together, and she chuckled at their matching sarcastic tone. The levity melted off her tongue as a beat of silence settled between them, replaced by a sort of wistful sadness that compelled the next words from her lips.

"I did offer you a rain check."

"I remember." Not a moment's hesitation before his answer, given with a faraway look in his eyes that she couldn't quite read.

He had asked her every week for months about that raincheck, maybe a hundred times altogether over the years. She had always said no, found something more pressing to do, some need that overshadowed her original spur-of-the-moment, reckless enthusiasm for life. Eventually his questions had become scarcer, and then they had stopped.

But now, here they were, together, moonlight streaming down across the glassy water of the real Lake George. Maybe that in itself was cause for celebration.

"What do you say we cash in that rain check, Chakotay?"

Eyes going dark, he studied her in the flickering light of the guttering candles. His Adam's apple bobbed once as he swallowed.

The pause was too long for her ego, or her heart, or whatever had overridden her brain to careen off her well-planned course back to comfortable friendship and into the abyss of whatever this was. She babbled to fill the silence, hoping details might drown the meaning behind her offer.

"I'm afraid the weather might not hold for a moonlight sail," she tipped her head toward the window where a bank of clouds was moving in from the North, "but we could make due with a balcony and a bottle of champagne."

Leaning in, one corner of his mouth curved into half a smile, just enough to catch the candlelight on the dimpled the curve of his cheek.

"I thought you would never ask."

# * # * # * #

Chakotay gripped the cork in one thick fist as he twisted the heavy, green, glass bottle. It let out a sigh rather than a pop as it came free-the sign of a good bottle paired with a skilled set of hands, as her sister, Phoebe, would say.

Kathryn held the glasses as he poured, a bit of ballet with tilting and balancing to keep things controlled, keep the bubbles from foaming. At least it kept her hands busy-kept them from shaking. When both flutes were full, he sank the open bottle back in the vintage ice bucket room service had delivered just as they had arrived at her room. When the door had closed on room service, leaving the two of them entirely alone, the implications of her invitation had sunk in.

_Come up to my room. My balcony is right over the water._

Her stomach flipped when he turned back to face her, expresion open, expectant.

"Shall we?" Her heart pounded as she passed one glass to him and motioned across the sitting room of her suite to the balcony door. As he opened the French doors, the icy cold rushed in, cooling the flush on her cheeks.

"I may need my coat-would you like to go get one, too?" Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears. He was wearing a thick sweater over a turtleneck, but if he left to retrieve another layer, maybe it would give her a chance to settle herself, break the moment, put them back on safer ground.

"I'll be fine."

Slipping her heavy jacket over her own light sweater, she stepped out to join him but left the door cracked open-for heat, certainly not an escape route. After a moment, her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she could make out the snow-limned domes of the Adirondacks across the water. No one was out in the cold with the press of the storm clouds now approaching, trailing a powdery fog in their wake. It was so quiet she could hear the water rippling in the breeze.

Chakotay stood at the railing, his features backlit by the moon and stars, staring off over the silent water.

"Cheers." She stepped up beside him and reached up to touch her glass to his, snapping him out of his reverie.

"To keeping promises." His lips weren't quite smiling, but his eyes seemed to be, and it sent her heart stuttering in her chest.

Sipping from her glass, she swallowed the cold effervescence and shivered. As she closed her eyes, she slipped back to a time when protocol had not yet outpaced friendship, when disagreements had not undone the mutual respect they had shared from day one. Maybe she was kidding herself, but she could still feel those undercurrents flowing between them, despite the years and the fights and the sacrifices.

If they were ever going to bring them back to the surface, it was time to deal with the elephant in the room.

"What happened with Seven, Chakotay?" Saying their names side-by-side should not have broken her heart so wide open. But she had to know, to understand, or they would remain nothing more than former colleagues meeting at a conference for dinner once a year.

"I guess you could say some things just didn't seem the same once we got back home." His eyes were on the moon as he leaned forward onto his elbows at the rail, tipping his glass to his lips before he continued. "But it ended well-as well as it could, I guess. No bad feelings, just two paths that moved in parallel for a while and then diverged. We wanted different things."

Hand shaking, she brought her glass to her lips and swallowed, hoping for courage, finding resolve.

"And what did you want?" Leaning her hip against the thick, wooden slats, she faced him straight on, challenged him to keep looking away when she was so near.

Taking the bait, he turned, straightening to his full height as he found her eyes.

"Something I could never have."

Forcing herself to breathe, she took a step closer, tipping her head back to keep her eyes locked with his.

"Are you sure?"

His eyes widened, lips parting around words just loud enough to be heard over the rush of blood thundering in her ears.

"I thought I was, until-"

"Until?"

"Until you asked me-"

Whisper soft lips met hers as she silenced him with a kiss that was over almost before it had begun. She found her hand gripping the soft nap of his sweater, his arm wrapped tight at her waist, as she balanced on the tips of her toes. She hadn't meant to kiss him, but she hadn't meant to invite him for moonlight champagne on Lake George, either. Without protocol to fall back on, it seemed she only had her instincts to guide her. But sometimes her instincts were wrong.

His face had gone blank, gaze scrutinizing her features, so close she had to concentrate to keep him in focus. Rasping and deep, laced with equal parts want and self-doubt, her voice echoed through the negative space between them.

"Was _that_ what you wanted?"

Chakotay let out a slow breath, the warmth buffeting her cheek, dropped his eyes to her mouth.

"No."

Eyelids shuttering, she released his sweater, tried to pull away as her heart thudded to a halt. But his arm held her fast against his chest until she opened her eyes again, found him smiling his most mischievous smile barely an inch from her lips. Her brow furrowed as he closed that distance, kissing her this time with all the passion that the first one had lacked. How could she have done anything but kiss him back?

When they broke apart, breathless and flushed, he tipped his forehead down against hers and spoke against her lips.

"_That_ was just the beginning."

# * # * # * #

Twenty years ago, I posted my very first fanfic—a J/C Voyager story that almost no one read and of which I was nevertheless proud. It was in the days of Geocities websites and the J/C Story Index and Your Cruise Director, and I had no clue about writing or story structure or purple prose. All I knew was, writing stories about my favorite characters and sharing them with others was _fun._ So that's what I wanted to remember this month, and why I signed up for a day on the 25 Days of Voyager, even though I haven't written any J/C in over a decade and certainly never posted any on AO3 or FFN or tumblr. It turns out I missed them. I sat down and wrote this in half a day, and it was _fun._ So thank you for letting me share that with you, and I hope you might enjoy it a little bit, too. And thanks to my beta, Alex, who goes along for the ride and smiles and nods even when I go off on tangents into different fandoms, and reassures me that all my protagonists do not, in fact, sound like Kate Beckett. E is a wonder who makes gorgeous things, and sometimes, when I'm lucky, she makes them for me. She made a gorgeous cover art collage for this story. Find her on twitter random_ship_E.


	2. Chapter 2

By George II

Inhaling deeply for the first time in… maybe eight years, Kathryn Janeway found snow, spruce, and warm, spicy sandalwood.

"You smell good." A thousand times she had thought it, but finally burying her nose against the baby-soft skin of her former first officer's neck had neutralized her filter.

His chuckle broke warm and light against the shell of her ear.

"Thank you. So do you. Lavender?" Chakotay had put down his champagne glass and plucked hers from her fingers to set it alongside, freeing both their hands to skim and navigate layers of fabric.

"Mmm. Something like that." After seven years of deprivation, she had spent a month testing every scent of perfume she had ever worn and dozens that she hadn't. In the end, she settled on a lavender and rose mix her sister had made for her. Usually the scent calmed her, but as his fingers nudged beneath her coat and trailed around her waist to link against the small of her back, it was all she could do to keep from shaking.

"You're shivering. The snow's starting. Maybe we should go inside." Chakotay had his entire bulk wrapped around her, warmth radiating off him in waves.

Kathryn inhaled again, stalling. But with another noseful of cologne sending a fresh wave of goose flesh blooming across her shoulders, she steeled herself to act. She had faced off with the Borg and won. What did she possibly have to fear from Chakotay?

_Losing her heart. Again._

"Good idea." Hiding from her fears never was her style. "My fireplace actually works, so said our helpful bellman."

With a final, tighter squeeze, he released her, and she slipped inside the door. Heat met her in a pillowy wall, and she slid out of her coat as a blush flared across her cheeks. Even then she could feel the ghost of his hands on her skin, his lips—

The doors clicked closed behind her, snapping her out of her reverie, and she crossed the room to the fireplace, pressing the panel controls to light the old fashioned flames. Light and warmth flickered to life inside the charming, old, brick fireplace, the play of shadows and smoke drawing her gaze and her attention long enough that his warm hand reappearing at the small of her back gave her a start.

"Beautiful." Chakotay's body was canted toward the fire, but he was staring straight at her.

Over seven years, she had become accustomed to finding his eyes on her, from across a crowded room to beside her on the bridge, but even on New Earth she had never seen his expression this dark, this raw, this unabashed.

All for her.

"Chakotay—"

His steady baritone didn't interrupt so much as persist, despite her attempt to direct the conversation.

"A few days ago, I was convinced I might never see you again outside official Star Fleet events."

Curiosity overpowered fear when his words came out tinged with melancholy.

"But you've been back on Earth for a month. If you wanted to see me, why didn't you send me a message?"

Stepping toward the fire, he disengaged his hand from its once-familiar resting place before he answered.

"After the way things ended, I didn't think I had any right to contact you. You had every reason to ignore me if I had."

Her focus narrowed, studying the press of his lips, his downcast gaze now directed at the fire.

"I would never ignore you. It might have hurt like hell, but you were my closest friend for seven years—I would have answered." The idea that she could ever ignore him was absurd, but then, so were the circumstances under which they had parted.

"I must have drafted a hundred messages. Nothing ever sounded right." Facing her again, the firelight painting patches of flickering color across his face, he gave her a rueful smile and tugged at his ear, "'Admiral, I've just moved back to San Francisco in the hopes of casually running into you at HQ.'"

She smiled with her lips pressed together, his droll sense of humor sparking a familiar warmth in her chest.

"'Admiral, I'm teaching a course at the Academy. Would you like to give a guest lecture on the Borg?'"

But then his face morphed in an instant from humor to sincerity; he stepped in close and took her hands in his with no hint of a smile on his face.

"'Kathryn, I've never stopped loving you, and I can't live without you. Please forgive me.'"

Her lips were on his before the moisture suddenly clouding her vision could escape.

Patient. Persistent. Thorough. The kiss was a gentle press whose softness gave way to heat. His hands tangled in her hair, her arms snaked around his neck, and then her lips were parting to trace the seam of his with the tip of her tongue.

A surprised little moan escaped his throat and he opened for her, angling her head with a tug of his fingers in her hair to deepen the kiss. Heart pounding, arousal sang through her veins, making her muscles loose and her head far too foggy to be explained by her few sips of champagne. When his hands disengaged from her hair and his arms slid around her, pulling her tight against him, she could feel him, hard against her hipbone.

While part of her wanted nothing more than to drag him to the floor and ravish him in front of the fire, the few sane, reasonable synapses still firing in her brain screamed that this was too much, too fast.

Gentling her mouth against his, she breathed in slow and steady, sharing air. When they separated, she stayed close, dropped her voice low.

"Can you forgive me?" Almost an apology, as much of one as she could muster.

"What for?" He still had his arms twined around her, still held her so tight her shaky knees didn't even need to hold her weight. "I was the one who broke my promise to wait."

Her heart swelled perversely at the thought that he remembered that promise, saw their ending as she had at her lowest moments—a breaking of faith. But they had both been responsible for their collective misery in the end, though for different reasons.

"For keeping you at arms length for seven years." For not believing they could both anchor each other and bouy the crew.

"You did what you had to do to keep your promise." He nudged his nose at the shell of her ear, his voice a balm that drew her closer, brought her up on the balls of her feet seeking more. "You got us home."

Regardless of circumstances or motivation, that truth brought on a deep, heavy sense of pride. But there were still mornings she woke before dawn, disoriented, expecting her old quarters, the subtle hum of the engines, the stale, metallic scent of recycled air… the certainty that he was sleeping just down the corridor.

"Trouble was, Earth didn't feel much like home without you." So much for her facade. Honesty was seeping through every crack.

"As far as I'm concerned, home is right here." Chakotay shifted to press his forehead to hers. "And I don't mean a resort on Lake George." Pulling back just enough for her to catch her breath, he pushed on. "I spent months traveling to every place that had ever meant something to me. Everywhere I went felt wrong, empty. Even with my sister and her family I was restless. My animal guide wouldn't speak to me."

"That doesn't sound like you." She slid her arms from around his neck, pressed her palms to his chest, felt the steady thump of his heartbeat through the soft knit of his sweater. Her own stuttering heart began to settle as he held her, chest expanding in a slow breath.

"Actually, it sounds exactly like me, the version of me who left Starfleet and joined the Maquis, the version who could never find peace. That's who I was until I met you."

Her lids shuttered closed on the ache those words set off. But when she opened them again, she found a lopsided little grin on his face.

"What?"

Shaking his head ever so slightly, he tried to deflect.

"Nothing. Never mind."

"Clearly there was something…" she had always been able to read him. It had been one of their early strengths as a command team, but it meant neither one could hide. His expression softened as she watched a familiar battle play out inside him. In the end, her best friend won, beat out whomever had tried to step between them.

"When you closed your eyes, you had this little wrinkle," he stroked the thick pad of his index finger between her brows, "right here."

Her lids fluttered closed at the gentleness of his touch.

"You used to do that when you were upset. Never in front of the crew, but sometimes in your ready room or if it was just the two of us in a turbo lift, you would shut your eyes and for a moment I could see what you weren't showing anyone else. Some days it took every ounce of strength I had not to take you in my arms just like this."

His hand had drifted down to cup her cheek, thumb now brushing absently over the curve of her cheekbone. It was too much to relive that past, all the solitude and self-denial. What she wanted was to live in this present, and maybe, just maybe, a future she had hardly dared to imagine. Covering his hand with her own, she leaned into the warmth of his palm, smearing a kiss into the tender skin of his wrist.

"You'll stay with me tonight—" it had come out much less like a question than she had intended, but her stomach fluttered in the beat of silence before he answered.

"Kathryn, I'll stay with you as long as you'll have me."

Those butterflies transformed into fireflies, swarming along her spine, setting nerve endings to fizzing and popping from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

"Good." It was the best she could manage, facing down the prospect of this moment and so many more. Threading her fingers with his, she took a step backwards, tugging him toward the door to the bedroom.

"We don't have to rush, you know. We have plenty of time." He was smiling that irresistible, boyish grin, dimples carving happiness into his cheeks as he let himself be led.

"I'd say eight years is probably enough foreplay, wouldn't you?"

Despite her smirk and bravado, they didn't hurry. He took his time sliding away layers, finding skin in the dim light of the antique sconces on the walls, mapping it with fingers and lips until she was vibrating with the need to touch him back, find all the ways to make him sigh, make him catch his breath. When they had each other bare, she slid back the covers on the enormous bed and pulled him under with her, wanting his warmth and weight against her skin.

He handled her so carefully, caresses slow and gentle, methodical, as though he were cataloguing every inch of her. When his lips joined his hands in exploring, she couldn't keep still. And when his mouth closed around her nipple, tongue laving and teeth nipping at the sensitive flesh, she let out a gasp. He hummed his approval and then suckled hard, drawing a whisper of his name from her lips and a writhing circle from her hips.

His whispered name on her lips triggered a flash of memory, a thousand times she had conjured up this very moment, doing this with him, when she lay alone in her quarters in the dark. Blinking hard, she pulled herself back into the present and found him watching her, his mouth still at her breast. He released her with a soft "pop," and she kissed him, pouring every regret, every missed chance, every betrayal into that connection, fueling the fire until all that remained was the all-consuming heat now linking them together.

Kathryn parted her legs for him, more than ready to have him inside her, and he settled between her thighs. But rather than speed things along as she had hoped, he gentled their kiss, separating from her mouth to slide down her body, trailing wet kisses over her ribs and across the plane of her stomach. Her breath caught as he moved lower—the fluttering in her belly now an equal mix of arousal and frustration. She had never much enjoyed her experiences with men attempting to pleasure her this way. It had always seemed a little too intimate, a little too crass, and those who had tried had learned quickly that their efforts would fall flat.

But now, watching the corners of his mouth curl up as he nipped and caressed his way down her body, she didn't want to deny him an experience he was clearly enjoying, so she vowed to keep an open mind. He looked up just as he spread her thighs wider, pupils blown, his gaze so intense she could not look away even when he dipped his mouth down to taste her.

Those perfect lips made contact with her center and her hips bucked at the warm, wet slide of his tongue. As with everything, he was slow, gentle, acting with no preconceived notions of what she should enjoy, and to her great surprise, she found her breath catching. Responding to every cue she offered, he honed in on what she liked, and soon she found herself gasping in pleasure.

When he slid one thick finger, and then a second inside her, she cried out, back arching and heels digging into the mattress on either side of his rib cage. He reached up with his free hand, covering one of hers where she hadn't realized it was fisted in the sheets, and she released the material to thread her fingers with his.

There was no awkwardness, no vague sense of embarrassment or obligation when he locked eyes with her and began to pump his fingers inside her. Chakotay stilled his mouth and tongue when he curled his fingers, pressing against her front wall and stroking hard until her hips flexed into his touch, pleasure beginning to coil tight at the base of her spine. Humming, he worked her up, relentless, until that coil stuttered, then released, sending hot, white sparks along every nerve.

His lips stayed on her, taking her through the climax until the last spasms subsided, then they stilled and pulled away with a final swipe of his tongue.

Tugging hard on the hand she still gripped with damp, unsteady fingers, she dragged him up her body and attacked his mouth with a bruising kiss, tasting herself and making him groan as her tongue delved inside his mouth. Something inside her had broken free, released from the inhibitions she had collected and protected for so many years. And now that the dam had burst, she only wanted more.

"Your turn," she panted against his lips, reaching between them to palm his erection.

"The only thing I want right now is you."

Pressing him into the mattress, she climbed on top, straddling his hips and lifting herself until she was perched atop his length.

"I think that can be arranged."

Chakotay watched with rapt attention as she rose over him. The moment she took him inside her and began to sink, she let out a gasp as his girth stretched her almost to the point of pain.

God it had been a while.

His brows lowered in concern, but she shook her head and inhaled, consciously relaxing until she could take more of him. His expression was almost stern in its intensity as he gripped her hips and kept his own perfectly still, letting her lead.

He again found one of her hands and pressed his palm to hers, fingers threading together, and her mind flashed back to that night, so long ago. That grip—palms kissing across a table in their tiny shelter—had been the most intimacy she would allow herself.

Steadying herself with her other hand against his chest, she felt the pound of his heart, the rise and fall of his breath, and her lips curved into a smile. No uniform, no sickbay fluorescent lights, no near-death experience—just skin on skin.

For a split second, she considered saying something, telling him how much he had meant to her, how much this meant, but in the end no words seemed adequate. So instead, she let out a slow breath and lowered herself to take the full length of him. When their hips met, finally he moved, flexing to push deeper still, until everything fit.

Kathryn set a steady rhythm, rising and falling as he thrust up to meet every stroke. When he wrapped his arm around her waist to pull her even tighter against his hips, a throaty little moan escaped her lips. Taking that cue, he increased his force and speed until her back bowed and she froze, body on the verge of the precipice, vision going unfocused.

Without warning, he tucked her tight against his body and rolled her to her back, ignoring her whimper of protest to pull her knee high over his hip and thrust home again. The crash of his hips vibrated through her core and she grunted with the shock of that perfect angle, the fat slide of him out and back in again before she could recover herself enough to lift her hips to meet his.

"Chakotay—"

All she could do was clutch at his hand and dig her heel hard into the straining muscles of his back as he drove into her fast and hard, somehow pushing her higher, until she had to shut her eyes just to keep from flying apart without him.

"Open your eyes, Kathryn." As he said it his body came to a stop, every muscle taut and straining as she raised her lids and found his face hovering above her, inches away.

Everything moved in slow motion, then. His hips withdrawing and then his length pressing deep inside her. Her own voice, high and desperate, chanting a litany of affirmation and urgency, blended with his name and her love for him. It was then that his rhythm faltered, his weight falling more heavily against her, setting off the first sparking jolts of her orgasm just as he swelled and jerked inside her. The spasms of her climax milked his own from his body as he sobbed her name into her hair.

Chests heaving, sweat pooling wherever skin met skin, they stilled, and for just that one moment, she let herself feel. No thoughts, no memories, no regrets, just warm, sated happiness. And the he shifted to roll off of her.

"Don't you dare move. Not one muscle." She was using her Captain's voice and she knew it, but she couldn't bring herself to care. It had the desired effect—Chakotay froze, hips pinning her to the soft mattress, biceps flexing attractively in her peripheral vision, fingers of one hand still linked with hers where he had pressed it into the pillow beside her head.

Endorphins had left her tingling and giddy, her body light enough that she might float away if not for his warm, solid weight holding her to the bed. As serious as she had imagined this moment might be through nearly a decade of fantasies, in reality, she couldn't help but smile. Joy bubbled just beneath the surface, and she no longer had the energy or the will to suppress it.

His forehead rested against the pillow alongside hers, and as he spoke, he turned his head so his lips tickled the shell of her ear.

"I must be crushing you." His words sent goosebumps trailing across her over-sensitized skin, and she held her breath to suppress the undignified giggle that was trying to break free.

Needing a task to draw her focus, she wriggled one hand from between them to reach for the sheet and draw it up, but she came up short. He managed to catch the embroidered edge of fabric to pull it up over them, rearranging his limbs to take some of his weight. When she could no longer ignore the smiling man resting naked on top of her, she went with her punch drunk instinct.

"I'd have guessed you might not mind taking advantage of this rare opportunity to rest atop the chain of command." Her eyebrow was raised to its fullest arch, and she had to bite her lower lip to keep from cracking up.

"I'll take advantage of any opportunity to coax that little noise out of you from a moment ago when you were—"

Snapping her head to the side, she faced him nose to nose, close enough to be out of focus.

"Hey now, don't let this go to your head. You'd better be glad I'm not your captain anymore or I might be forced to punish you for insubordination." Despite her best efforts, her grin was leaking through.

He lifted his head at her words, glaring down at her with a roguish smile, smug expression framed by sex-tousled hair.

"Why do I get the feeling I might enjoy the punishment as much as the crime?"

Leaning in, he kissed her lips and swallowed her pithy retort. When they came up for air, she let her smile free.

"Only one way to find out."

# * # * # * #

Thanks to Alex, Dia and Angie—I could not have done this without you. I only hope I've done J/C justice in my first attempt at M-rated fic in this fandom. Thanks to every single reader who left feedback on part I. I felt the warmest welcome to a new fandom as a writer, though for me it was one of my first as a reader.

Here's to old friends and new ideas.

—K. C.


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